Dickie Scruggs, could he really be that dumb?

In a story we have been watching closely hear at the Legal Broadcast Network, famed trial lawyer Richard "Dickie" Scruggs of Mississippi has been named in a federal indictment alleging he was behind an attempt by his firm to bribe a state court judge with $40,000 to influence the allocation of legal fees on Katrina claims. The amount of fee's at question total over $26 million but the facts as they are being reported are so shocking that you almost are in a state of disbelief that an attorney of the stature of Dickie Scruggs could even contemplate such a clumsy and immoral attempt to corrupt the court.

The Wall Street Journal today has an online profile of Attorney Scruggs and the facts in the case. You can also find the back stories in the Journal archive as well.  Keep in mind the WSJ is generally anti-trial lawyer, but their reporting is superb on the facts so you can make up your own mind.

As for the LBN group, while i'm stunned that this could in fact take place in this day and age, I'm not so naive as to believe this hasn't happened before in other states and other courts. Anyone who has worked in and around the legal profession knows that there are bad judges and lawyers out there and as one of my friends likes to say, when there is enough money on the table human life has very little value.  Unfortunately, while I would very much like to believe this story is not true, i've had to witness the spectacle of William Lerach, Melvin Weiss, the Cincinatti Phen Fen lawyers, the asbestos/silicosis frauds and others dragged into court for equally atrocious behavior, so I'm thinking where there is smoke there is probably fire.

The bottom line is that there has been a subculture of corruption in many areas of litigation where the money is big and the stakes are high and unfortunately the trial lawyers are feeding the perception that they are just " a bunch of greedy cheating lawyers", instead of people fighting for justice.  It is disgusting to watch this, I hope these charges prove to be false, but if they aren't it is just one more huge black eye against the legal profession, particularly trial lawyers that further stains an honorable profession. 

The trial lawyers in America are better then this and they deserve better from the more prominent firms then corrupt behavior that stains then entire profession.